


A Knight in Shining Armour

by IrregularWriter



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sherlolly - Freeform, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrregularWriter/pseuds/IrregularWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicholas Holmes was brought up on stories of a knight in shining armour however, there is always some truth in fairy tales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Knight in Shining Armour

**Author's Note:**

> A/N - Don't own Sherlock. I like Victorian AU's. I really really do.

His son’s room was somewhere Sherlock had been spending a lot of his time lately. The young boy was inquisitive and would spend hours on end quizzing his Papa about chemistry, experiments, anatomy and most importantly his special science – the science of deduction. Even though Nicholas Holmes was only seven years old he could understand theorems and equations well above his age range. Something Sherlock took great pride in cultivating.

The little boy in question had just flown into his room, striped pyjamas and teddy in tow, and leapt up onto the bed. It was bed time and bed time was Nicholas’ favourite time of day. Mummy would be up in a minute and they would talk about their day and then Mummy would read a story to him or, if he was very lucky, make a special one up just for him. After that he would get tucked up in bed with his teddy, Babbage, and fall asleep dreaming about all the adventures he was going to have the next day. Yes, bed time was most certainly his favourite time of day.

However in tonight’s routine there was a slight change – Sherlock would be performing the night time ritual as Molly was at her mother’s. The old bat was moaning about her son-in-law and grandchild not visiting her as well but Sherlock could not honestly say he was bothered one ounce by Mrs Hooper’s protests. There was no love lost between his mother-in-law and himself. However, over the course of his marriage to Molly he had learnt that family was very important to her. Even if the family in question should be kept in a cupboard and never let out.

He entered the little boy’s room to see him fiddling with a toy rocket they had built together a few days ago.

“Nicholas it’s time for bed,” he announced, his deep baritone reverberating around the panelled room.

“I know Papa,” answered Nicholas as he climbed into the big oak bed in the centre of his room. Sherlock pulled the cover back and allowed his son to settle in before tucking him in and sitting on the side of his bed.

“According to Mummy I’ve to ask how your day has been?”

Nicholas giggled at his Papa’s statement. Sometimes his Papa had the oddest way of talking especially when he was delivering one of his deductions. It was almost mechanical and reminded Nicholas very much of his small clockwork duck. He would wind it up and watch it zoom across the room without a break and then stutter and fail as it ran out of steam. The same could be said for his Papa. He would often talk without taking a breath and then have to gulp in a lungful of air when his deduction was finished. Yes, Papa was very much like his wind up duck.

“Well, breakfast was good because Mummy made pancakes before she left.”

“Oh did she?”

“Yes but you were doing something else so you didn’t get any.”

“Well, that’s a shame isn’t it?” Sherlock tried his best to sound engaged but it wasn’t hard considering he cherished every word that left his sons lips, “And then what did you do?”

“Then you sent me to Uncle Mycroft’s because you had a case,” Nicholas pouted.

“I couldn’t very well have you running around a crime scene now could I?”

“I could’ve helped you!” argued Nicholas, who had been very annoyed at being shipped off to Mycroft’s.

“Your mother would have killed me. She said not until you are at least twelve years old. So you’ll have to wait a few more years, ok?” Nicholas nodded at his father’s words, “What did you do at Mycroft’s?”

“I played football with Cousin Jeremy but he’s awful and can never hit it in the net so we gave up and went inside for cake.”

“Typical,” Sherlock muttered under his breath.

“Pardon?”

“I said brilliant. And I think I can deduce the rest of your day. Judging by the mud stains on your trousers you decided to go adventuring in the woods near the river at Uncle Mycroft’s, yes?”

The little boy nodded and had an ugly feeling he knew exactly where this line of deduction was headed.

“There you decided to climb a tree and went up too high. That’s how you got that impressive cut on your knee and the grazes on your hands are from where you tried to break your fall, correct?”

Again the boy nodded but did not look up at his father.

“Nicholas Holmes what have you been told about going on adventures?”

“To only do it when you are there to help me,” he mumbled.

“Yes and why didn’t you?” Sherlock asked his son.

“Because you were on a case and Jeremy was being stupid. He was too scared anyway. And Uncle Mycroft was in a meeting and Anthea was baking and…and…and I WAS BORED!” he said quickly wanting to avoid his father’s wrath.

Sherlock smiled fondly at his boy and leaned forward to ruffle the curls that sat atop his head, “It’s alright. I’m not angry. Sad that I wasn’t there with you but I’m not angry at you for climbing the tree. Just make sure you don’t tell Mummy!” 

Nicholas smiled at him cunningly, “Like I’m not supposed to tell her about the frogs or the burnt curtains?”

“Precisely.”

“Ok Papa.”

Sherlock smiled at the boy again and sighed, “What now?”

“Now you tell me about your day!” Nicholas exclaimed brightly.

“Oh it was tedious. Barely a six and that idiot Anderson was taking notes on the body again. Never listen to a word he says Nicholas. I think you’ll hear all about it soon as John is planning on writing it in his book.”

Nicholas loved Uncle John’s book. It was a book all about crime solving with pictures and stories of how his father solved difficult cases. John says that he’ll publish it one day but Papa says the writing in it is too bad and would never pass to print. Nicholas hopes someone does want to print it because then people would know that his dad was a hero and not just an amateur detective.

“Okay,” Nicholas said slowly, “Now you tell me a story.”

Sherlock groaned, he detested fairy tales but his son lapped them up, “Must I?”

“Yes otherwise I can’t go to sleep!”

His son looked up at him with big, innocent doe eyes that he found hard to refuse, “Fine. Which one?”

“Can you make one up?”

“Make one up?”

“Like Mummy does. She tells me stories that are made up just for me.”

“And what are these stories about?”

“A dark knight in shiny armour and a woman who knows all about science and things but she’s not very popular and gets picked on by the elves and goblins.”

“What happens to this woman?”

“She eventually gets caught by the goblins because they want to keep her from the knight but he saves her and they fall in love.”

Sherlock suddenly knew exactly what the story was about. His clever little Molly had made up a fairy tale out of facts. He found himself wondering how her interpretation of the story went. He definitely knew it from his side but he had never really asked her about the days before they were married.

“Can you tell me that story please Papa?” yawned Nicholas.

“Of course. If I remember correctly it went something like this…

Once upon a time there was a very intelligent young woman. She had long brown hair and big brown eyes and was very beautiful. However, she was also very poor. Her father was an apothecary and he did not earn much money because the people were turning to new medicine’s to cure them and stopped believing that herbs and ointments could cure diseases.

Now the old apothecary did not want his daughter to be poor forever so he encouraged her to learn even though most people believed that women could not learn like men could. He traded some herbs for science books and gave them to his daughter on her sixteenth birthday.

Well, it turns out that she took to science like a duck to water and was soon knowledgeable on many things. She especially enjoyed learning about the human body and would ask her father to quiz her on the topic.

But her father was not very well and soon he passed away. Her mother was distraught but soon married a rich man as she did not have enough money to support her family on her own.

The rich man was not evil, like most rich men, but he was kind and gentle and encouraged the young woman’s love of science.

In fact he even paid for her to go to the big school for clever people so that she could learn more. But the posh elves at the big school would make fun of her because she was a girl and they did not like that a girl was as, if not more, intelligent than them. The girl became very quiet and almost turned invisible because she didn’t want the elves to pick on her. 

One day, however, the girl was working in a big laboratory mixing chemicals to make a healing potion when another boy, a knight in fact, came in to steal some chemicals for his own concoction. 

He had never seen this girl before so did not know what to do. At first he just stood still and observed her working. She was very skilled and knew exactly what she was doing – this impressed the knight greatly as he had never before seen a girl doing science. Then he cleared his throat and the girl dropped a beaker of liquid onto the floor.

The knight walked over and watched her clean the mess. She was nervous because she had never seen this knight before either, and he did look very imposing in his shining black armour with the purple crest of his family on it.

“Who are you?” he said intrigued by the mousy woman.

“M-Mary,” she replied, “And you?”

“Sir Holmes.””

“Like you Daddy?” Nicholas asked sleepily.

“Yes. Did Mummy never tell you his name?”

“No.”

“Oh…Anyway Sir Holmes and Mary soon became acquaintances and Mary would help Sir Holmes with his experiments. But one day the evil King of the Goblins was out to cause trouble and he found the young woman and hid her away in his frightening castle.

He didn’t want Sir Holmes to have a partner to help him in his endeavours. He was a mean goblin and he was known by most for his love of games. He would play the most dangerous games and he always won – until this time.

He challenged Sir Holmes to find Mary and if he didn’t find her in time then he would never see her again. Sir Holmes realised that he couldn’t do without her and that he might even love her so he played the goblin king’s dangerous game and he won. He battled all of the King’s army and fought his way to the castle. He was able to solve all of the King’s puzzles and rescue his Mary.

Then the goblin King came out to meet him but Sir Holmes was able to trick him into losing one of his own games. Well, the goblin was infuriated and went mad. Sir Holmes bravely battled the goblin King until he was able to vanquish him but not without sustaining great injuries to himself.

However, Mary took him home and nursed him better using all of the knowledge her father had passed on as well as the healing practices from the great tomes she had read. Soon enough Sir Holmes was back on his feet and off fighting villains again.

A little while later they were married in a big castle in Scotland and rumour has it that they still help each other with experiments to this day. And that is how Sir Holmes the knight fell in love with the woman who knew all about science.”

Sherlock looked down to see his son snoring softly into his pillow. He brushed a few curls out of his face and crossed the room to retrieve Babbage, carefully placing him in the bed beside Nicholas.

He leaned down and placed a soft kiss to his son’s forehead, “Goodnight little one. Sleep tight.”

He shut the door to the boy’s bedroom quietly and couldn’t help the grin that spread onto his face. 

He turned to head towards his own bedroom when he was startled by the sight of his very lovely and light-footed wife on front of him.

“You’re back,” he said.

Molly nodded, “I arrived about twenty minutes ago.”

“How is your mother?” Sherlock asked out of duty not real concern.

“Alive and kicking,” Molly giggled.

“Wonderful,” her husband added sardonically.

“Is my knight in shining black armour taking me to bed?” she teased.

Sherlock’s ears tinged red as he coughed awkwardly, “If that is your wish fair maiden then I am all too happy to oblige.”

There were many tales of the knight in black armour and the woman who loved science to come over the years. Some that Nicholas would be privy to and some that would be kept between the two of them.


End file.
